RESIDENCES
Besieged staff are getting reinforcements as promised
Sideswiped by the alarming mortality rate in Quebec seniors’ residences, the Legault government Wednesday again cranked up efforts to rescue the most vulnerable from the COVID-19 crisis.
With the death toll rising in both the public and private home network, Premier François Legault and Health Minister Danielle Mccann used the daily pandemic briefing to say their promise to draw workers from the hospital network to reinforce besieged personnel in the long-term care network (CHSLD) and seniors’ residences is happening.
Mccann announced a total of 450 doctors and 500 nurses have responded to the call for help and said the redeployment of the troops has started. The doctors and nurses are to be aided by an unspecified number of orderlies and other personnel.
Mccann also announced all residents and personnel in Quebec’s 2,200 seniors’ residences will be systematically tested and that all staff will be better equipped with protective gear.
“I want to tell the families of these persons, we have not forgotten you,” Mccann said at the briefing. “We will do everything we can to protect those who built Quebec.”
Families and staff have been calling on the government to intervene as the number of confirmed cases and deaths continue to climb. Of the 175 dead in Quebec as a result of the virus, two-thirds were residents of either a CHSLD or a private seniors’ home.
On the island of Montreal, 46 of 294 residences have at least one confirmed case of COVID-19.
The vast majority — 88 per cent — of the 175 people who are confirmed to have died of COVID -19 in Quebec were older than 70. About half of those age 70 or older who have died of COVID -19 were living in long-term care centres.
There has been criticism of the government’s handling of the situation — specifically that it concentrated too much effort shoring up the hospital network for the anticipated flood of COVID -19 patients while not doing enough for seniors’ residences, which were in fact harbouring dozens of cases.
In an interview Wednesday on Radio-canada, Dr. David Lussier, who works at l’institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal, said the CHSLD network was in the government’s blind spot.
“We reassure people that things are going well, that there are not many hospitalizations but, at the same time, there are dozens or hundreds of people in CHSLD’S who are very sick and in the process of dying,” Lussier said.
The government has already conceded there are more sick people in Quebec than the data reveals because residents with COVID-19 in seniors’ residences are not included in the daily tally of hospitalizations.
The government has responded, saying about the very first thing it did when the crisis started four weeks ago was ban visits to seniors’ residences and make residents stay in their rooms.
On Wednesday, Mccann said other concrete steps are being taken, such as having dedicated teams for the sick and the well in seniors’ residences to avoid the spread of the virus.
Centres have created “hot, cold and in-between” zones for residents who are sick, well and those who might be sick but show no symptoms.
Horacio Arruda, the director of public health, said a public-health team will specifically investigate the outbreak at the CHSLD Ste-dorothée in Laval. More than half the people at that long-term care centre have COVID -19 and at least 13 have died.
The Legault government is also preparing for the road ahead, when some of the strict controls imposed on businesses, the construction industry and the people can be loosened. On Wednesday, Montreal health officials said the number of cases in the city is peaking.
What is in peril are any kind of summer festivals or evenings on a terrasse that would gather masses of people together, Legault said. That’s because the rules of social distancing will go on for months and will need to become part of Quebec’s culture to ensure there is no second wave of the virus.
“We have to make sure that we restart the economy without restarting the pandemic,” Legault said.
“I know it’s tough, tough to continue all our efforts, but as we say in English: April showers bring May flowers.”
The announcements were made as the number of confirmed COVID -19 cases in Quebec topped the 10,000 mark. The number as of Wednesday is 10,031, which is 691 more than the day before. The total for Montreal is 4,775.
Twenty-five new deaths have been registered, for a new total of 175.
There are 632 hospitalizations — 49 more than the day before. Of the total in hospitals, 181 are in intensive care, which is an increase of 17.